


It's Peter. He/Him.

by bisexualdisaster221



Series: Transgender Peter Parker [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Coming Out, Gen, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker, tony is accepting of trans peter in his own special way, trans peter has my whole heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualdisaster221/pseuds/bisexualdisaster221
Summary: FRIDAY was never wrong with identifying faces and voices, but as he stood outside a ratty apartment in Queens, ready to possibly recruit a 14-year-old girl who also happened to be Spider-Man, Tony couldn't help but think she'd messed up somehow.A rewrite of Peter's introduction scene in "Captain America: Civil War," except that Peter is trans.
Series: Transgender Peter Parker [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878373
Comments: 11
Kudos: 381





	It's Peter. He/Him.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have not fully watched Captain America: Civil War yet. I've watched several scenes and read through several headcanons and wanted to show you my take on the trans Peter trope! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Pat <3

FRIDAY was never wrong with identifying faces and voices, but as he stood outside a ratty apartment in Queens, ready to possibly recruit a 14-year-old girl who also happened to be Spider-Man, Tony couldn't help but think she'd messed up somehow.

“FRIDAY, you’re sure this is the right place?” Tony muttered into his Bluetooth earphone, aware yet choosing to ignore the gawking teenager at the end of the hallway.

“Yes, Boss,” FRIDAY answered in his ear, “Voice and facial recognition software recognizes Ella Parker as a 99% match to ‘Spider-Man.’”

Tony frowned slightly, scrolling through the analysis report on his phone. His eyes flicked back and forth, studying two pictures side-by-side. One was of a young-looking girl with poofy brown hair forcibly smiling into the camera. The other was a blurry screenshot of the Spider-Kid, swinging from the roof of a building as he chased a car.

“The kid in the suit is clearly a guy,” he mumbled, swiping through Ella Parker’s general information for what was probably the twentieth time. She was 14, nearly 15, her birthday was August 10, 2001, she was caucasian and had brown hair and brown eyes. She was just a normal, albeit awkward-looking, high school student. “Those pajamas are skin-tight. There’s a bulge and everything, and there’s no chest.”

“No other search in my database showed a match as close as Ella Parker, Boss.”

Tony sighed, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Won’t hurt to rule it out,” he decided, ringing the doorbell. He stood back and adjusted his sunglasses, straightening out his jacket so he could look as intimidating as possible.

A lady- May Parker, he guessed- answered the door, leaning against the door frame as she crossed her arms over her chest. Her face showed surprise for a split second, before she forced it into a neutral position. He could definitely see the similarities between her and her daughter, at least up close. Their eyes and nose were practically identical- well, maybe, he didn’t know. FRIDAY was the expert, not him. He just tinkered with shit.

“Hi, yeah, I’m looking for Ella Parker? She applied for a grant, and I’m here to discuss it.”

May’s eyes widened, and she stood back, gesturing for him to follow her inside. “Little shit never told me about a grant. Come in, Mr. Stark, I’ll get you some coffee. She should be back any second now, school let out a little while ago.”

“Tony,” he corrected.

“What’s that?” she called, already headed into the kitchen.

“Call me Tony, and I must say, Ms. Parker, you are ridiculously attractive.”

May snorted. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Tony. You can have a seat on the couch while we wait. Sorry it’s pretty worn-down, it’s been a while.”

Tony sauntered into the living room, plopping down on the lumpy sofa. He surveyed the apartment. It was obviously cheap, most people in this part of Queens didn’t have a high household income. Several photos sat on the mantle, some of May, Ella, and another man he didn’t recognize, some of a young married couple with a baby, and some that appeared to be yearbook photos of a younger Ella. The drapes were ridiculously old-fashioned and screamed of the early nineties, and the carpet wasn’t much better. Maybe Pepper was rubbing off on him, he never thought of himself as an interior designer, but now he could definitely see how to make improvements within the home.

May soon entered the room, meticulously balancing two mugs of coffee in one hand and a plate of some strange-looking loaf in the other. She handed a mug to him and sat down on the couch. Tony noticed with slight amusement that hers was already half-empty. He picked up a piece of the loaf and bit into it, grimacing at the flavor. Was that a-

“Walnut date loaf,” May said proudly, “made some last night.”

“Hm. It’s delicious,” he forced out as he choked it down. May smirked.

“So, what’s this I hear about a grant?”

Tony lifted his sunglasses so they rested on top of his head and took a slow sip of his coffee. Not bad for instant, he could appreciate that at least. “Your daughter applied for a grant a few weeks ago, September Foundation. I was surprisingly impressed and came to offer her one.”

May smiled into her mug. “She’s actually my niece, and that doesn’t surprise me. El’s always been brilliant in science.” 

Tony breathed a sigh of relief that his excuse was actually believable. “Huh. No parents, then?”

“They died a while back.”

“Hm.”

The tone in the atmosphere shifted, but before things could become awkward, the sound of a key unlocking the door resonated throughout the empty apartment. Both adults turned toward the sound. From the angle he was sitting at, Tony couldn’t see much of the front door, only the very edge of it as it swung open. Shoes clattered on the floor as the door shut behind the person entering.

“Hey, May,” a shockingly un-feminine voice called out. That was definitely not the voice of a teenage girl.

“Hey! How was school today?”

Footsteps sounded from behind the wall as Ella walked through the kitchen. “Okay. Hey, there’s this crazy car parked outside…”

For a fraction of a second, Tony’s world stopped spinning.

That... that was not a teenage girl.

The teen- Ella?- stood stock-still in the open room, eyes widening at the sight of Tony (which was unsurprising, given how ridiculously fabulous he was- well, that and the fact that he was kind of a popular guy). Her face was slimmer than it had been in the photo, even slightly chiseled, almost like a boy’s. Her hair was lopped off and sloppily gelled back in a way that showed him that the girl had no idea how to properly style it. Everything, from her flat chest, to her ratty sweater, to her nerdy t-shirt, all the way down to her demeanor and body type, screamed “THIS IS A BOY.”

But it wasn’t.

Tony wanted to yell out, “Who are you and where is Ella?!” or anything even remotely similar, but all of he could think of in that exact moment was:

“Oh, Ms. Parker.”

“Um…” Ella seemed to almost snap out of her stupor as she fumbled to remove her headphones. She tucked the DVD player she was holding under her arm and shoved her earbuds into her pocket. “What- what are you doing? Hey! Uh- I’m- I’m- I’m P-Ella.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed slightly, not missing the slip-up. “Tony.”

Ella’s mouth twisted into a slight, unbelieving smile as she nervously shifted on her feet. “What are- what are you- what are you- what are you doing here?”

“It’s about time we met. You’ve been getting my emails, right?” Tony winked, hoping she’d get the message.

Ella blinked. “Yeah- yeah.”

“Right?”

“Regarding the…”

May cut in. “You didn’t tell me about the grant.”

“About the grant!”

“The September Foundation,” Tony fibbed.

“Right.”

“Yeah. Remember when you applied?”

Ella looked hesitant. “Yeah?”

Tony smirked, “I approved, so now we’re in business.”

May looked accusingly at her niece, “You didn’t tell me anything. What;s up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?”

Ella’s eyes flickered nervously toward her aunt. Tony took great joy in the slight panic and utter disbelief in the kid’s eyes as she stuttered out, “Why, I just, I just… I just know how much you love surprises, so I thought I would let you know… wh… anyway, what did I apply for?” Tony nearly cringed at her awkwardness.

“That’s what I’m here to hash out.”

“Okay, hash, hash out, okay.”

Tony turned his head, slightly gesturing at May. “It’s so hard for me to believe that she’s someone’s aunt.”

“Yeah, well, we come in all shapes and sizes, you know?” she grinned, almost flirtatiously.

“This walnut date loaf is exceptional,” he fibbed- perhaps the biggest lie yet.

“Let me just stop you there.”

“Yeah?” Tony questioned.

“Does this grant, like, got money involved or whatever? No?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s pretty well-funded.”

“Wow.”

“Look who you’re talking to.” He turned to May. “Can I have five minutes with her?”

May winked at her niece, sitting up on the couch to finish her coffee. “Sure. Have fun, kiddo.”

Ella nodded shakily, her eyes glimpsing over at Tony as he stood from the uncomfortable sofa, before she awkwardly started down the hall. She led him to a room, presumably her bedroom, and went inside.

God, even her bedroom looked like a boy’s room. Was she just an intense tomboy? No, that couldn’t be it. “Tomboy” was a girl who was into sports. Ella was clearly into engineering and science, given by the sheer amount of broken-down tech cluttering up every single surface of the already-messy bedroom.

Tony shut the door behind him and bolted it, turning to the trash can to spit out the loaf. “As walnut date loaves go, that wasn’t bad.” He straightened back up, fully taking in Ella’s collection of devices. “Woah, what do we have here? Retro tech, huh? Thrift store? Salvation Army?”

Ella looked uncomfortable. “Uh, the garbage, actually.”

“You’re a dumpster diver.”

“Yeah, I was… anyway, look, um, I definitely did not apply for your grant.”

“Ah-ah, me first,” he interrupted.

“Okay…”

“Quick question of the rhetorical variety,” he said, reaching for his phone. He turned it on and pulled up the video of the Spider-Kid swinging through the streets, projecting it into a hologram and pausing at a very specific moment. “That’s you, right?”

Ella’s look of discomfort said it all. “Um, no. What do you- what do you mean?”

“Yeah.” Oh, she was definitely the Spider-Kid. He unpaused the video. “Look at you go. Wow! Nice catch. Three thousand pounds, forty miles an hour. That’s not easy. You got mad skills.”

“That’s all- that’s all on YouTube, though, right?” she lied, terribly, “I mean, that’s where you found that? Because you know that’s all fake. It’s all done on the computer. Besides, I’m a… girl, I can’t be Spider-Man.”

Tony nearly frowned at her hesitance about saying the word “girl,” but he brushed it off as a stutter. “Mm-hm.” He reached for a pole sitting on Ella’s desk as soon as she turned away.

“It’s like that video. What is it?”

He poked at a loose ceiling tile with the pole, gently nudging it upward as he answered half-assedly, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah… oh you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” He prodded further.

“Exactly!”

The ceiling tile lifted, and out fell Ella’s suit. He internally smirked. “Oh, what have we here?”

Ella launched herself at the suit, hiding it and shoving it into the closet. Tony sat down on the desk chair, pulling it out. She stuttered, clearly looking for a response, but unable to formulate words. “Uh… that’s, a…”

“So you’re the.. Spider…ling. Crime-fighting Spider. You’re Spider-Boy?”

The teen folded her arms, looking down at the floor in defeat. “Sp-Spider-Man.”

“Not in that onesie, you’re not. And what happened to the whole insistence that you’re a girl, hm?”

Ella at least had the decency to look mildly offended at Tony’s insult. “It’s not a onesie,” she insisted, pacing back to her desk. Tony picked up the suit.

“I don’t believe this,” she grumbled to herself, leaning over her desk. “I was actually having a real good day, you know, Mr. Stark. Didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there, and… Algebra test.” She picked up a pencil and slapped it against the desk. “Nailed it.”

Yeesh, Tony could not relate to that last one. Despite his extensive knowledge in engineering, high school math had always been his worst subject.

“Who else knows? Anybody?”

“Nobody.”

“Not even your…” Tony paused, “unusually attractive aunt?”

“No. No, no. No, no. If she knew, she would freak out, and when she freaks out, I freak out.”

Tony ignored her, choosing instead to examine the mechanics on the pajama suit. He looked closer at the web shooters, fascinated by the structure. “You know what I think is really cool? This webbing. The tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?”

“I did.”

“Climbing the walls, how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?” He examined the fingerpads, mildly surprised to find no grippy material there.

“It’s a long story, I was uh…”

Tony almost burst out laughing at the cheaply-made goggles attached to the suit. He lifted them up to his eyes. “Lordy! Can you even see in these?”

Ella’s cheeks burned as she snatched the suit away, obviously forcing her voice to quiet down. “Yes. Yes, I can! I can- I can see, in those. Okay? It’s just that… when whatever happened happened… it’s like my senses were dialed up to eleven. There’s way too much input, so… they just kinda help me focus.”

“You’re in dire need of an upgrade,” he cut her off. “Systematic, top-to-bottom, 100-point restoration. That’s why I’m here.” Ella moved from her desk to her bed, the frame creaking under her weight. Sudden curiosity sparked in Tony. “Why you doing this? I gotta know. What’s your MO? What gets you outta that twin bed in the morning?”

Ella looked uncomfortable as she fiddled with her fingers- a nervous habit, clearly. “Because… because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers for six months.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I read books, I build computers… and- and yeah, I would love to play football-” Football? Odd choice of sport for a young teenage girl- “But I couldn’t then, so I shouldn’t now.”

“Sure,” Tony shrugged, “because you’re different.”

“Exactly! But I can’t tell anybody that, so I’m not. When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…” Tony leaned closer as her voice tapered off a bit, “And then the bad things happen… they happen because of you.”

Tony’s heart stung a little at Ella’s confession, and he felt his facial features shift before he could stop them from doing so. “So you wanna look out for the little guy? You wanna do your part? Make the world a better place, all that, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just lookin’ out… for the little guy. That’s- that’s what it is.”

The two were quiet for a moment, before a question from earlier popped into Tony’s mind.

“So what’s with the whole ‘girl’ thing?”

Ella gripped her arm, noticeably nervous. She looked down at the floor and shifted her feet. “Oh- uh- well, I’m trans.”

“As in transgendered?”

“Transgender. Yes.”

“Your aunt?”

“Doesn’t know.” Ah, that explained it. “She- she’s still not over Ben yet, at least not completely, I’m not gonna come out while she’s grieving. That’s not fair to her.”

Tony hummed. Suddenly, all of her mannerisms were starting to make sense. “So, male or female?”

“Male. It’s… it’s Peter. He/him.”

Tony wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but given the context, he assumed it meant that those were the kid's pronouns. “Peter, huh? Any reason?”

“‘S a cool name, I guess. My friend helped me pick it out.”

“You’ve got friends?”

Peter’s head shot up, catching Tony’s teasing smirk. “Sure I got friends! There’s- there’s Ned, and- and- yeah. Ned.”

Tony snorted, and Peter looked mildly offended. The man slowly stepped over to Peter. “I’m gonna sit here, so you move the leg.” Peter complied, moving his leg, which had previously been stretched out on the mattress, off of the bed. Tony sat beside him, wincing at the creaky bedframe. He raised his hand, hesitant for a moment, before he clasped it down onto Peter’s shoulder. “You got a passport?”

Peter was clearly caught off-guard by the sudden change of topic. “Uh, no. I don’t even have a driver’s license.”

“Ever been to Germany?”

“No.”

“Oh, you’ll love it.”

“I can’t go to Germany!” Peter cried out.

“Why?”

“I got… homework,” came his feeble excuse.

Tony scoffed. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

“I’m- I’m being serious! I can’t just drop out of school! And you’re cool with me being trans? That doesn’t, I don’t know- bother you?”

“Listen kid, I really don’t give a flying shit about what gender you are. Anyway, it might be a little dangerous. Better tell Aunt Hottie I’m taking you on a field trip.”

Tony stood, reaching for the door. He gaped in surprise as his hand was suddenly encased in webs. His head shot up. Peter stood, hand held out in an odd position. “Don’t tell Aunt May.”

“Alright, Spider-Man,” he conceded, raising his free hand in mock surrender. Peter and Tony shared a meaningful glance before Tony snapped back into his regular attitude. “Get me out of this.”

Peter seemed to snap out of it too. “Sorry, I’ll get the-”

Tony watched as Peter frantically shuffled around in his closet for the dissolving solution. He was worried about recruiting a little girl into what could turn out to be a violent battle between multiple enhanced individuals, but as it turned out, he had nothing to worry about.

Peter, huh? Tony smirked.

He already liked this kid.

**Author's Note:**

> How'd I do? I'm trans myself, so I tried to project my experiences as best I could onto Peter. I hope I did it well! Please let me know what you think of it, I'd love to hear your feedback! Spam incoming btw:
> 
> Other notes on this fic: I wrote this at 7 am on very little sleep, so I apologize if it seems a little rushed! Also, Tony notices very early on that something is up with the "girl" he was going to recruit, but as time goes on and eventually Peter comes out to him, he immediately switches over to the correct name and pronouns. I feel like Tony is such a Supportive Dad that he would have absolutely no room in his heart for transphobia.
> 
> Another note: The reason Peter's voice sounds so low and his face is slimmer is because he's already started T. He came out to Ben before he came out to May, and Ben helped him get a prescription of T before he died. Peter still had a lot left after Ben died, but since he's a minor, he couldn't pick up any more on his own, so he's been off T for about a month. However, the effects of T don't just go away, so he's kind of just stopped progressing for a while, He was on T for about a year before going off of it, which explains why his voice was so masculine and his body was already kinda masculine too.
> 
> He really isn't around Aunt May too much and tends to wear baggy clothing, so she hasn't noticed anything off yet. She thinks he's a bit weird for his fashion tastes and his haircut, and sometimes she questions him on his voice, but he lies and says he has a sore throat, which is why it sounds deep. He binds pretty much all the time [even in his suit, which is SUPER UNSAFE NEVER DO THAT] and wears a packer, which is why he appears to have a masculine body, even with his naturally female characteristics. He has muscle too, which helps, and T has shrunken the size of his breasts somewhat.
> 
> He plans on coming out to May after she's had her time to process Ben's death, and he knows she'll be accepting. Ben and everyone at school knows he's trans, and Flash makes fun of him for it, which is quite frankly a better explanation for the bullying aside from "haha nerdy penis parker."
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!
> 
> -Pat <3


End file.
